Divergent 3D, a Los Angeles startup backed by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, raised just over $65 million in a funding round that will help it complete an experimental factory equipped with 3-D metal printers and techniques adapted from the aerospace industry that's designed to dramatically cut the cost and environmental impact of auto production.

With the Series B round, which has an investor option for another $40 million if needed, the company has raised more than $90 million and is “fully funded to complete our reference factory,” CEO Kevin Czinger told Forbes. Hong Kong's O Luxe Holdings led the latest round, which drew additional investments from Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures, Shanghai Alliance Investment Limited and Altran Technologies.

“This allows us to do our full scale up, and is actually more cash than we need through break even” operations, Czinger said in an interview. “This is likely our last private funding.”

Divergent 3D is part of the “additive” manufacturing revolution in which high-speed 3-D printers are being used to make complex products out of metal and composite materials. Czinger, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker who previously created the electric vehicle startup Coda Automotive, intends to license Divergent 3D’s technology for highly flexible factories that produce an extensive range of vehicles under one roof, with no need for welding, paint shops or conventional heavy machinery.

A typical car plant costs between $500 million and $1 billion to build, and the tooling and machinery are amortized over many years, which is why they need to produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles per year to be profitable. Divergent 3D promises it can build a production line for 20,000 or more cars a year in a warehouse-type space, complete with large-scale 3-D metal printers, laser cutters and assembly robots, for just over $50 million. Because of lower capital and production costs, vehicles would be up to $6,700 cheaper to build, on average, Czinger says.

In place of Detroit's megafactories--or Elon Musk's Gigafactories--21st-century manufacturing will be ruled, Czinger believes, by networks of small-scale urban plants like his. They'll be able to deliver low-cost, lightweight, low-carbon vehicles in small and highly customizable batches.

Kevin Czinger, founder and CEO of Divergent 3D, leans over a Blade supercar built using high-speed 3-D metal printers and other advanced techniques at his prototype factory in Los Angeles.Ethan Pines for Forbes

The company is already generating revenue from engineering projects for France’s Group PSA and other “global top 10” automakers that Czinger declined to identify. Divergent 3D’s initial Los Angeles factory will be completed by 2019 and able to produce about 2,000 vehicles a year. Until then, the facility will make prototypes for auto and tech customers, and will be able to build as many as 500 vehicles in 2018.

The company built the elegant Blade supercar in 2016 to demonstrate its technology, and will continue to subject that vehicle to structural durability tests to validate its assembly techniques--including using high-strength adhesives rather than welding to bond sections of the vehicle together--as it works on concept vehicles for other companies.

Divergent raised $23 million in its Series A round. Czinger was its initial investor in 2014 and retains a controlling stake in the company.

I write about technology-driven changes that are reshaping transportation and cities from Los Angeles, the U.S. capital of cars and congestion. I've covered global automakers, advanced vehicle tech and environmental policy for two decades, including 15 years with Bloomber...